Curriculum / Conceptual Mathematics / module 2

Fair Shares: Fractions on the Plate

By OSH Founding Team✓ Verified by OSH Review Panel

Fractions begin as fairness: halves, quarters, and thirds discovered by sharing real food and objects equally.

Parent guide (what to say and do)

Hand the child one roti or a slice of bread and say: 'Share this fairly between us.' Let them fold or cut. Introduce the word half only after they have made one. Repeat with four people for quarters. The key question every time: 'Are the shares equal? How do you know?' Never start with written fractions; the notation comes weeks after the folding.

Learning material

Paper circles for folding practice
Fraction fold cards (platform library)

Practical exercises and activities

Kitchen: cut fruit into halves and quarters at snack time daily. Paper folding: fold squares into 2, 4, and 8 equal parts and colour one part. Fairness court: child judges whether staged unequal shares are fair and fixes them.

Materials required

Everyday food at snack time, paper, colours.

Assessment checkpoints

Child divides an object into equal halves and quarters, names the parts, and rejects an unequal share as not a real half.

Learn with AI

Ready-made prompts for this module. Copy one into your AI assistant and it becomes a patient tutor that follows the OSH method: no lecturing, no rote learning, hands-on activities included.

For the student

A tutor that teaches this module step by step, asks questions, and never just gives answers.

For the parent or teacher

A coach that helps you prepare, deliver, and troubleshoot this lesson.

How to set this up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude

ChatGPT: Open ChatGPT → press your profile → My GPTs → Create a GPT → paste the prompt into Instructions → name it after the module → save for repeated lessons. Or simply paste the prompt at the start of a new chat.

Gemini: Open Gemini → Gems panel → New Gem → paste the prompt into the instructions box → name it after the module → save. The Gem stays available for every study session.

Claude: Open Claude → create a Project (or a Skill in Claude Code) → paste the prompt into the project instructions → every conversation in that project becomes a tutoring session for this module.

Safety note: children under 13 should use AI assistants together with a parent, and account age rules of each platform apply.

This module is part of the open OSH curriculum, licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. Print it, adapt it, share it.